In recent years, a consciousness that a pet is not just a companion animal but a “family member” becomes common, and the pet is taken care very carefully. In addition, with the prevalence of pet food having high nutritional value and vaccine, the life span of the pet is significantly increased for the past 20 years.
On the other hand, with the increase in the life span of the pet, the number of pets suffering from diseases similar to adult diseases of human beings such as obesity and diabetes is increased. Accordingly, the medical cost for the disease and injury of the pet tends to be increased. Therefore, many owners are extremely careful with the health of the pet. As a result, there is a growing need for health support services such as nursing care and pet insurances that are popular among human beings.
Based on such a background, methods and systems for examining the health of the pet are conventionally proposed. When the pet feels sick, the pet cannot tell its owner the sickness directly. Consequently, in order to protect the health of the pet, disease prevention before the pet catches a disease and “early detection of the disease” before deterioration of the disease are extremely important. Therefore, in order to detect the disease of the pet early, a plurality of methods and systems that automatically detect the disease of the pet using biological information on the pet and images of the pet have been proposed.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-51990 discloses a health examination system that includes a sensor, a transmission section, and a body information management section. The sensor is brought into contact with the body of the pet, and detects body information (a pulse, a blood pressure, and a body temperature) on the pet. The transmission section transmits the detected body information from the sensor. The body information management section receives the body information. In this system, the body information management section manages the body information on the pet and performs abnormality detection of the body information on the pet, and transmits an emergency signal when the body information management section detects the abnormality.
In addition, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2009-165416 discloses a health examination system for the pet. In the health examination system, using an eye drawing section that draws the eye of the pet, the eye of the pet is drawn and the facial image of the pet is taken. Further, in the health examination system, biological data items such as the size of a pupil, the temperature of the eye, and the glossiness of a nose are extracted from the facial image of the pet. Subsequently, the health examination system determines the health condition of the pet from the extracted biological data items. Note that the eye drawing section draws the eye of the bet by giving stimuli such as, e.g., pictures, light, sound, and smell to the pet.
Further, Japanese Patent No. 5142038 discloses a pet management system. In the pet management system, the health condition of the pet is determined by comparing the image of the iris of the pet taken by a camera and the health condition of the pet inputted by its owner with a database, and the determination result is reported to the owner.